[Laszlo-user] Command Keys and OS X

[P T Withington]

I don't have an suggestions here, but will be interested to know what  
you come up with.  I think it is a general problem with web apps:  how  
to reconcile the web app's keyboard shortcuts with those of the  
browser and OS.  Many web apps drive me nuts because they usurp my  
OS's editor shortcuts, when I am in the middle of an input field in a  
form!  There is no way, I want some app shortcut happening when I am  
just editing text.

I've always thought that Macrobe made a mistake equating the Mac  
Command key with the Windows Control key.  I can see the motivation --  
cut/copy/paste -- but I think the Command key is a lot more like the  
Windows key than the Control key.  It's too bad that both OS's  
couldn't agree on a modifier key to reserve for non-OS shortcuts  
(where OS includes the bundled browser).

And don't get me started on the typical Windows app, each of which  
seems to invent it's own set of UI shortcuts to ensure that your  
muscle memory will never be of any use...

On 2009-02-25, at 12:01EST, Brendan Fagan wrote:

> I've got an application with command keys that work ok in Windows,  
> but don't
> work in OS X.  I've dug into the issue a bit to consider what to do  
> about
> it.  Here are my findings.
>
> In order not to piss off browsers on Windows, I tend to use  
> shortcuts like
> Control-Shift-X.  Alt keystrokes tend to hit menus, while many  
> Control key
> combinations tend to be editor functions.
>
> On OS X, the Command key is the basic control key.  It sends '17' as  
> does
> the Control key on Windows.   Since the browsers look to this key for
> application shortcuts, Command is out.
>
> In FF3 on OS X, the Control key sends '17' when pressed, the Alt key  
> sends
> '18'.  In Safari, neither the Control key nor the Alt key send any key
> stroke to Flash.
>
> In both FF3 and Safari on OS X, a combination of Control or Alt and  
> any
> typical key (letters, numbers) send a single distinct keystroke.  In  
> this
> case, Control-X is '24', Alt-X is '188'.
>
> I can certainly tell an OL app when it starts, what env it is  
> running in.
> This should allow me to switch the keys via a state or something.
>
> The question is how do I handle this with the lz.KeysService?  I  
> could write
> a handler that tracks all onkeyup events and looks for specific key  
> codes
> such as '24' or '188', but there's already a handler that tracks all  
> keys in
> lz.KeysService for this purpose.   I propose that a callOnKeyCode()
> and removeKeyCodeCall()
> to allow a delegate to be bound to a specific key value.
>
> I'd considered that you could check if a value sent to  
> callOnKeyCombo() is a
> strring or an integer, but that would seem buggy when using it from  
> the
> command tag.   A 'keycode' attribute could be added to the command  
> tag that
> overrides the 'key' array of strings.